posted at 9:21 pm on July 31, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ended a three-year battle over Gov. Scott Walker’s signature legislation Thursday, delivering a 5-2 decision in the law’s favor. Act 10, passed by a majority GOP legislature in 2011, limited collective bargaining for public employees, sent the state’s elected Democrats into hiding in another state to avoid a vote on it, and left liberal activists to turn the Wisconsin capitol building into an episode of “Hoarders” as they camped where their elected officials dared not tread lest they have to do their jobs. The subsequent electoral and legal fights have attracted the entire professional Left, millions of dollars, and every kind of organizer to the Badger state to attempt to defeat Walker and anyone who helped him. Again and again, they have failed, and today’s decision is another reminder that no matter how big a fit they’ve pitched, this law will go— ahem— on, Wisconsin.

The decision is also a boon to Walker’s reelection effort, neck-and-neck with challenger Mary Burke, coming as it does on the heels of national and nearly uniformly unfair coverage of a fruitless secret investigation into Walker, who was exonerated by two judges who rejected the charges. Nonetheless, the old swirling accusations, treated as new, became an attack line for Burke and a bruise for Walker, fair or not.

Using the model the national press used for coverage of the fruitless John Doe investigation, they should all get to work writing lead stories about the now failed and rejected arguments brought by the union defendants in this case without ever mentioning the Supreme Court decided 5-2 against those arguments and upheld the law.

The decision was 5-2, with Justice Michael Gableman writing the lead opinion, which found that collective bargaining over a contract with an employer is not a fundamental right for public employees under the constitution. Instead, it’s a benefit that lawmakers can extend or restrict as they see fit, he said.

“No matter the limitations or ‘burdens’ a legislative enactment places on the collective bargaining process, collective bargaining remains a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation. The First Amendment cannot be used as a vehicle to expand the parameters of a benefit that it does not itself protect,” Gableman wrote.

Rejecting arguments made by the Madison teachers union and Public Employees Local 61, a group of city of Milwaukee employees, Gableman said that public employees still had the right to form unions to influence their employers, but government officials aren’t obligated to listen to them.

“The plaintiffs remain free to advance any position, on any topic, either individually or in concert, through any channels that are open to the public,” Gableman wrote.

“Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $3 billion,” Walker said in a statement. “Today’s ruling is a victory for those hard-working taxpayers.”

Attorney General JB Van Hollen applauded the court’s decision.

“Since the historic events of 2011, I have been dedicated to defending Act 10 and Wisconsin’s Voter ID law,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “Today, the Supreme Court has completely upheld these laws. The decisions settle important state policy and serve to strengthen our constitutional democracy.”

Last Friday, Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled that Act 10, which dramatically cut the powers of public employee unions, is unconstitutional.

Eager to take advantage of Colas’ ruling before it could be stayed or overturned, officials from various unions representing Dane County employees, immediately began pressuring county officials for a new contract.

On Wednesday, 22 members of the Dane County Board signed a petition asking the board to sign a new contract with the union.

On Thursday, with scant public notice, the board voted 29-8 to do just that.

The court also decided in favor of the state’s Voter ID law, with a predictably overwrought dissent invoking Jim Crow, and affirmed a civil unions registry that allowed the state to give benefits to same-sex partners was not prohibited by the state’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (which itself was overturned by a federal court this week). Both of those decisions may be subject to further review in federal courts, but Esenberg and Sykes offer a nice run-down of what happened today.

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Good news for Walker. I can’t believe the race is that close. Are people going to be stupid enough to vote for another dim, after the last one left the economy in shambles there?

cat_owner on July 31, 2014 at 9:53 PM

The general order of things is to elect Republicans to fix the problems the Rats left (cough…$3.6 billion deficit based on Team Doyle’s lame duck budget requests…cough), and then toss them once they think the problem is fixed. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The voter ID law is still in limbo because the Left drew the most-liberal member of the Eastern District bench in Lynn Adelman for their lawsuit against it, and he introduced a new legal concept in striking it down.

The general order of things is to elect Republicans to fix the problems the Rats left (cough…$3.6 billion deficit based on Team Doyle’s lame duck budget requests…cough), and then toss them once they think the problem is fixed. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Steve Eggleston on July 31, 2014 at 10:06 PM

The slightly smarter liberal enclaves do that (see, New York, Giuliani, Rudy for another example). The dumber liberal enclaves never learn, and simply keep voting in liberal Democrat after liberal Democrat no matter how bad things get, because they enjoy demonizing the right more than they enjoy improving their own quality of life (Detroit being example No. 1 of that phenomenon, but Oakland is a good West Coast counterpart and Chicago’s fast headed in that direction).

The left can’t afford to have voter i.d. in place, it’s really hard to steal elections if there’s voter i.d. It’s like in Florida, the Democrats fought Touchscreen voting because it was difficult to challenge. They want a system in place that is not objective, like touchscreen ( you either touched Obama or you didn’t touch Obama) and some sort of subjective system where the Democrats can determine the intent of someone. Hence, Florida gave up touchscreens.

The slightly smarter liberal enclaves do that (see, New York, Giuliani, Rudy for another example). The dumber liberal enclaves never learn, and simply keep voting in liberal Democrat after liberal Democrat no matter how bad things get, because they enjoy demonizing the right more than they enjoy improving their own quality of life (Detroit being example No. 1 of that phenomenon, but Oakland is a good West Coast counterpart and Chicago’s fast headed in that direction).

jon1979 on July 31, 2014 at 10:16 PM

The city of Milwaukee also does that – it’s been more than a century since an identifiable Republican has been mayor. In fact, it’s been so long that the office is now nominally nonpartisan

Funny you mention that – the dissent came from the Coven wing of the Wisconsin Supreme Court (Chief Lawgiver-In-Black Screamin’ Shirley Abrahamson and her familiar and noted pugulist Ann Walsh Bradley).

Steve Eggleston on July 31, 2014 at 10:37 PM
Come on Steve! I know you got your thing here, but a little honest on the ground read wouldn’t hurt once in a while. The state is much more conservative than it was four years ago. The Marquette poll is done by a guy who is notorious for push polling, and mostly surveying southern urban Wisconsin areas only. The chief justice is old, and may not have strength for another term. Besides, the state GOP has a deep bench lined up with deep pockets ready to go. If I, a guy living in D.C. see that, well….

Come on Steve! I know you got your thing here, but a little honest on the ground read wouldn’t hurt once in a while. The state is much more conservative than it was four years ago. The Marquette poll is done by a guy who is notorious for push polling, and mostly surveying southern urban Wisconsin areas only. The chief justice is old, and may not have strength for another term. Besides, the state GOP has a deep bench lined up with deep pockets ready to go. If I, a guy living in D.C. see that, well….

flackcatcher on August 1, 2014 at 12:20 AM

If November 2012 hadn’t happened,I might believe you.

If a liberal superPAC hadn’t just put in over $250,000 in TV ad buys over the next 11 days (good for over 500 commercials on 5 Milwaukee TV stations including all 4 with news operations) in an attempt to defeat their #2 target, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (DemocratInNameOnly because sheriff is a partisan office), I might believe you.

If a couple of old campaign pros with a winning record hadn’t told me that the Walker campaign is blowing it, I might believe you.

That said, I have issues with the last couple of Marquette polls, which still slightly oversamples Rats this time around with an inexplicable massive drop in Pubbie enthusiasm/willingness to vote and a disconnect between Rat enthusiasm and Rat willingness to vote (enthusiasm down even from the depressed May level, but willingness to vote exceeding the Rs for the first time in recent poll history). The optimists already said that the pre-recall Marquette polls had the same track.

Naturally, We don’t hear much in the National Media about Wisconsin unless it’s an obvious win for some socialist cause or a major set back for anything sane…

Walker is a perfect candidate for the Presidency if he decides to jump in.. with as many commie groups, commie journos, and hired dem/commie hit men that have literally crawled up his arse in the last 6 years, there can’t be any surprises left in his closet can there??